


Who the Hell Is Jeffree?

by katietonks



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artist Steve Rogers, Beauty Guru Bucky Barnes, Cosmetics, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Kissing, M/M, Makeup, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, Youtuber Bucky Barnes, makeup artist bucky barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22724170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katietonks/pseuds/katietonks
Summary: "No matter how many times he recalled the events of the morning, Steve still wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up in this position."AKA: The canon-divergent/post-Endgame AU in which Steve and Bucky retire to the woods together, Bucky becomes an influential makeup artist on YouTube, and somehow ropes Steve into filming a "Doing My Boyfriend's Makeup" video.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 97





	Who the Hell Is Jeffree?

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story started as a joke between my friends and I after seeing the jaw-dropping reveal of Jeffree Star's upcoming "Blood Lust" collection. I thought it would be incredibly fun to see Bucky as a makeup artist, finding comfort in the discrimination-free beauty community where he could embrace the "feminine" aspects of his appearance that were rejected by the standards of the 40s and mocked by Hydra. 
> 
> As a whole, this story definitely serves as a light-hearted love letter to all my other makeup-nerd, die-hard Stucky shippers and an homage to the amazing, upcoming products from Jeffree Star Cosmetics. 
> 
> (Rated Teen and Up for language and a few brief references to sex)

_~ Who the Hell Is Jeffree? ~_

No matter how many times he recalled the events of the morning, Steve still wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up in this position.

It started when he woke up, reaching over to the space beside him to find the sheets empty. Instantly, Steve lifted his head, an innate sense of worry over Bucky’s safety fueling every impulse. Hearing muted sounds of shuffling in the kitchen, Steve rolled out of bed in his underwear and left the room without bothering to throw on a robe or pair of sweatpants. He found Bucky as soon as he stepped into the kitchen and rested against the island with his arms crossed, as he watched his boyfriend flit around the table, completely oblivious to Steve’s presence. The entire surface was covered in half-opened, hot pink boxes with matching bubble wrap and packing Styrofoam strewn across the wood. With an ecstatic smile, Bucky continued to open more boxes, slicing open tape that portrayed a repeated star-logo motif and comparing the contents to a list in his hand. He shook his head in mesmerized disbelief, whispering under his breath, “Unreal.”

Once he stood still for a moment, Steve took the opportunity to step forward and slip his arm around Bucky’s waist, peering over his shoulder to see the packing slip that he was reading. “What is all this?”

“Oh, hi, you,” Bucky said, as if only then realizing that Steve was in the room. He pressed a quick kiss to Steve’s cheek before walking to the other side of the table to rip open another box. “Jeffree sent me his entire new collection.”

“Oh,” Steve said, like that meant something to him and cleared up all the confusion that he had. He had managed to put together that this mess was makeup-related, judging from the six identical cartons labelled “Lip Gloss” that were beneath him, but aside from that, he still had quite a few questions, especially after catching the total price of the items at the bottom of the slip. “300 dollars’ worth of makeup?”

“I know!” Bucky removed a hexagon-shaped box from another box and gasped. “ _Christ_ , this is gorgeous, Stevie.”

Steve nodded as Bucky showed him the deep purple, crushed velvet packaging that covered – well, something. For as much as he supported Bucky in his cosmetic endeavors, Steve had to admit that he was still extremely naïve of this world that Bucky had dove headfirst into. When Bucky had hesitantly confided in him his interest in makeup after learning about it a few months into their game of culture-catch-up, Steve was surprised but thrilled to see him pick up an artistic hobby. Steve had his drawing and painting, so Bucky would have his makeup. Neither of them truly had any idea what pursuing makeup would entail, but Steve soon learned that it required copious amounts of powders and creams and brushes and tools. After their third or fourth trip to the mall, Steve stopped asking what came in the black-and-white-striped bags that Bucky brought home, learning that there were hundreds of foreign terms associated with the concept that Bucky appeared to have an encyclopedic knowledge of and Steve would never understand.

And Steve was perfectly fine with that. While Steve worked on sketching a new landscape or portrait onto canvas in his designated office in their cozy, one-bedroom lake house, Bucky would spend hours in his own office next door, presumably painting his own version of a portrait on his face. The first few weeks, Bucky kept his work exclusively secret and would climb into bed beside Steve bare-faced, reporting in vague terms the progress on his skills, which Steve could easily detect as disappointment after hearing the sighs carry through the thin walls throughout their day. Steve would simply repeat the lessons that he was taught in art classes from another life – that any sort of artistic skill required a lot of practice and dedication.

Using precisely that amount of practice and dedication, Bucky honed his craft, developing his skills to a point that he was confident enough to share his work with Steve, which he did abruptly on a completely insignificant day. He knocked quietly on the door to Steve’s office and entered looking down toward the floor and covering his face with a hand mirror. “Listen,” he had said, “I know that this is weird and different and you might actually hate this, but I think I’m finally happy with how this turned out today.”

With that lead-up, Steve couldn’t deny the hint of worry that arose as a feeling of tightness in his chest, scared to hear that timid tone of voice suggesting the idea that Steve could ever possibly _hate_ something that brought Bucky joy. Frankly, Bucky left Steve speechless when he lowered the mirror. After years of subconsciously studying every fine detail of his face, Steve was shocked to find how subtle the differences were between his clean face and this version. His overall complexion had become blurred and evened-out, appearing as perfectly smooth ivory, but some extra definition had been added to his cheekbones and jawline that made them even sharper. His dark eyebrows and eyelashes had been colored even darker, and his lips were just a few shades pinker. He was beautiful, but Steve had always seen him as beautiful and would continue to see him as beautiful every moment of every day for the rest of their lives.

Steve told him such with a warm smile and a tight embrace and a gentle kiss. Bucky laughed his words of thanks and told him that he had lipstick around his mouth, brushing it off with his thumb.

So, as he stared down at their kitchen table, dumbfounded at the sight of so many boxes and products that had seemingly been gifted to his boyfriend, Steve certainly still felt that overjoyed sense of pride that Bucky found a pastime that he adored. But seeing the look of longing and admiration that Bucky gave to a personalized letter that was signed with a red imprint of a kiss, Steve also felt maybe a bit – _jealous_? “Bucky, who the hell is this Jeffree guy, and why is he sending you 300 dollars’ worth of makeup?”

Bucky caught his eye and chuckled, shaking his head. “Stevie,” he said with a chiding yet teasing quality to his voice, “sweetheart, you know how I sometimes record myself doing my silly makeup tutorials and put those videos on the internet?”

Of course, Steve knew about the YouTube channel. He was the one to give Bucky that final push of encouragement to post the first video, bullshitting an inspirational speech about how empowering it would be to speak openly and proudly about who he was and what he loved, preemptively damning anyone who dared to take issue with Bucky’s interest in makeup. He was right beside him to watch how quickly his subscriber count grew in the first day – hell, even the first _hour_ that the video was posted – and celebrate the overwhelmingly positive response. He was there to congratulate Bucky on the plaque that he received for gaining a million or so followers who religiously watched his content. He was also always the one to politely decline all of Bucky’s offers to feature him in a video, preferring to be a watcher rather than participant.

(In particular, he preferred to watch the videos from the privacy of his own office where Bucky’s wholeheartedly and brutally honest stories would often bring him to tears. As he brushed and painted the various products over his face, Bucky spoke so candidly about their shared struggles of being poor and queer in the early 20th century, both before and during the war. He discussed the traumatic experiences that still haunted him from when he was being brainwashed as the Winter Soldier and everything that complicated the healing process that came after – all while making a gorgeous display of colors on his eyelids. Steve watched the videos from a unique perspective. For some stories, he could recall his own memories of the events with smile, and for others, he could never imagine the horrors that Bucky was forced to face on his own. Those were the conversations that they tended to avoid in person, but on camera, Bucky appeared to have little trouble talking to strangers about them.)

Nevertheless, Steve was intimately familiar in more ways than one with the content of Bucky’s videos. “Yes, dear.”

“Well, occasionally,” Bucky continued to explain slowly, as if teaching a rudimentary concept to a child, “brands send me complimentary PR packages with new products for me to review and hopefully recommend to my followers. This is one of those packages.”

Familiar with the concept, having seen Bucky toy with one or two of these products before, Steve nodded but spared another fleeting glance to the packing slip. “But _300 dollars_?”

Seemingly unsure of what to say, Bucky let down his hair from the half-bun that it was messily tied in and combed his fingers through the strands that fell across his shoulders. “It’s a luxury brand, Steve. It adds up, and it demonstrates how much he wants me to review the collection. Maybe with a special guest.”

Steve immediately recognized the glint that appeared in his eyes and the slight upturn in the corner of his mouth, as he slightly tilted his head to the exact angle that caught Steve’s heart in a vice grip. “Bucky,” he began softly, preparing to let him down gently.

Bucky interrupted him before he could continue. “What? I mean, it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and I think that my subscribers would really appreciate finally being able to meet you. And could you imagine how much respect it could earn me from Jeffree if I got Captain fucking America to promote his new line?”

“I know that people want me in a video, Buck, and I’m also still retired, Buck.”

“That’s fine,” Bucky said and repeated with a sigh, widening those baby blue eyes and pouting the perfect amount. “Really, that’s fine. It’d just mean so much to my followers and this huge name in the makeup scene. And it’d mean the absolute world to me.”

Steve truly didn’t care about appeasing Bucky’s followers or impressing some powerful influencer, but _goddamn_ , when Bucky looked up at him through those naturally long and dark lashes? He would do anything and everything for James Buchanan Barnes.

So, ultimately, that was how Steve ended up in Bucky’s office-turned-studio, still relatively unsure what he was doing there and feeling as if he didn’t belong. He stood awkwardly in the doorframe while Bucky set up the camera on his tripod, selected a purple backdrop to roll down the wall, and began organizing the new makeup, removing the products from their individual cartons. Bucky moved so naturally in this space with such clear intention that it was almost surgical in the manner that he laid out specific brushes and compacts on a rolling cart beside the stool in the middle of the room. Wordlessly, Bucky asked for his hand when he finished setting the stage and directed him to sit on the stool.

First, Steve found himself blinded by the lights, hardly able to open his eyes, but fully understanding their purpose of demonstrating the makeup in the best possible lighting and giving Bucky an ethereal glow in his videos. After his eyes adjusted, Bucky appeared at his side, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You ready?”

Ignoring the buzzing nervousness that had settled in the pit of his stomach, Steve nodded. “Of course.”

Bucky beamed at him, rivaling the high wattage of the lightbulbs with his smile, before he stepped between Steve and the camera to address his future audience. “Hi, everyone! We are apparently going to forego the usual introduction and jump right into it, because I literally could not be more excited to make this video.” Steve marveled at how Bucky spoke so casually and conversationally to the little red dot beside the lens, amazed by this calm and charismatic persona that simply exuded from him. “Not only are we going to check out the new _Blood Lust_ collection from Jeffree Star Cosmetics and show you guys a stunning look, totally deserving of the royal theme, but I am going to demonstrate it on my equally-stunning boyfriend.”

Steve nodded along with his narrative but paused at that last line.

Tossing a glance over his shoulder, Bucky looked back at him with a smirk. “Is that okay?”

After Bucky had asked him to shave, Steve had a sneaking suspicion that this little soiree would be leading to their own contribution of the “Doing My Boyfriend’s Makeup” trend. But after hearing the words said out loud, sitting on the stool, under the scorching lights, Steve was forced to confront the reality of the situation. Clearly, Steve had no issue with Bucky embracing makeup, but he never once envisioned a scenario in which Bucky would be doing _his_ makeup.

Before that slight hesitation at the idea could transcend to any darker manifestations of worry or doubt, Steve felt Bucky’s arm slide around his shoulders, as he stepped beside him, molding perfectly to his side, just as he did every moment that they were together over the past hundred years. “Obviously, you all know this guy. He was in your history textbooks, he was all over the news a few years ago, and hell, maybe he even saved your life or rescued your cat from a fire. You know him as Captain America – or, you know, the old Captain America – or maybe Steve Rogers. To me, though, I just know him as my Stevie.” He turned his attention from the camera to Steve and smiled. “Say hi, Stevie.”

Steve looked at the camera and tried to reflect just ten-percent of Bucky’s energy, raising his hand a bit limply and speaking to the red dot. “Hello, everyone.”

Bucky smiled even wider and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “You ready to do this?”

At this point, Steve knew that there was no going back. “As I’ll ever be.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Bucky whispered to the camera and then selected his first instrument, which happened to be a small round container. “Since this is such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I am pulling out all the stops and only using the best for you, baby. So, let’s start with this gorgeous Tatcha moisturizer and massage that all over your face to prime your skin.”

As Bucky gently rubbed the cream over his face in circles, Steve let his shoulders relax, finding comfort in the dual warm and cool sensation of skin and metal that he had grown so accustomed to feeling. “Perfect,” Bucky said, reaching for the next bottle. “Now, don’t ask me how I already have foundation that perfectly matches your rosy undertones, and let’s just put it on.”

Bucky did so by bouncing a damp sponge onto his face, transferring the liquid to his face in an even coating, so that when they both looked to the vanity mirror, it was a subtle change but as if he was looking at one of the airbrushed magazine covers that he had seen of himself. Still looking relatively the same, Steve shrugged his affirmation, and Bucky moved on to the next step.

While Bucky applied the _concealer_ , whatever that meant, under his eyes and across his forehead and down his nose with the same sponge, Bucky let out a sigh, admitting, “You know, I’m actually a little nervous to be doing this. I’ve never cared about impressing anyone else, but I really want to make you proud.”

“Bucky, you always make me proud,” Steve said plainly, simply, stating a fact.

Bucky hid his shy grin by turning back to the cart to pick up a brush and a compact. “If you say so,” he muttered and then switched back on the bubbly persona. “So, now, we’re gonna contour and bronze up your face a bit to make all those sharp, movie star angles pop.”

Steve was familiar with this concept; it was the same idea of shading his drawings to accentuate the shadows and elements of darkness to exaggerate the light aspects. Bucky did just that by adding a contrasting light cream beneath the tan lines on his cheeks. Looking into the mirror again, Steve could definitely see the change it made in further defining his cheekbones and jawline – subtle differences but certainly noticeable.

“Let’s add just a hint of color back onto that complexion with my go-to Tarte Amazonian Clay blush,” Bucky said and dotted a slight amount of light pink powder to his cheeks, not enough to make him resemble a creepy Victorian doll but enough to make him look alive and breathing.

Bucky snapped that particular compact closed and then opened another. “Okay, let’s get that skin baking, so we can tackle those brows.”

Steve closed his eyes, while Bucky used an angled sponge to press translucent powder all over his face. With that in place, Bucky excitedly unscrewed the lid to the tiny jar of _pomade_ that he was holding and dipped in the equally-tiny brush. He fell into a steady rhythm of swiping little dashes of the product throughout Steve’s eyebrows, humming a nondescript tune, and Steve felt oddly content with Bucky’s breath ghosting his face – a familiar sensation in this incredibly unfamiliar situation. When he moved to repeat the process to the other eyebrow, Bucky introduced a new layer to this experience. “So, I get a lot of questions about our relationship. Would you be interested in maybe addressing some of them?”

Mentally reminding himself not to nod, Steve agreed verbally. “Sure.”

“Everyone loves to ask about how we met, so why don’t you give your perspective of that day.”

Steve kept himself from laughing. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell. God, we were so young, and it was so long ago that it almost doesn’t seem real. We were literally kids; I think I was five or six, which makes you six or seven. Some other kids were telling me that I couldn’t play with them, and out of nowhere, Bucky was there, standing up for me even though he didn’t even know who I was.”

As if agreeing on his retelling of the events, Bucky hummed again. “Does that make me your knight in shining armor?”

“Yeah, of course, Buck,” Steve said, joking with a smile. “My prince charming.”

“Well, that fits in perfectly with our palette today,” Bucky said, transitioning smoothly, as he raised the hexagon-shaped box. Running his hand over the velvet, he sighed. “Feel how soft that is, Steve. I think I’m in love with this packaging.” Steve touched the fabric and nodded. “Nice, right?”

“Very nice.”

“The shades, though, are even nicer.” Bucky undid the jewelry clasp, holding up the array of eyeshadows for the camera. Fawning over the product, Bucky shook his head. “I’m actually a little speechless, you guys. We have eighteen brand-new, unique shades in Jeffree’s unbeatable formulas, and I absolutely adore these names and imprints.”

After _priming_ Steve’s eyelids with a nude cream, Bucky grabbed a brush and tapped into one of the shades. “I want to make your eyes the focal point of this look, because this palette is obviously the star of the show today, so I think we should go all out. I’m thinking something really dramatic and wild that embraces your inner pink and purple, glittery, fairytale princess fantasies and brings them to life.” When Steve didn’t respond, Bucky continued with a laugh. “Okay, maybe those are just my fantasies, but let’s start slow and build up to that. I’m gonna start by mixing these two shades _Your Majesty_ and _Deviant_ , because I think that’ll give us a really pretty, pale lavender base that we can build on.”

The round bristles of the brush were soft against Steve’s eyelids, as Bucky blended the colors onto the creases of his eyes.

“Excellent,” Bucky said before returning to his palette and choosing the next shade. “Now, let’s deepen that a bit with this nice mauve, _High King_ , and oh, hi, that’s me! Am I the king of this house, babe?”

Steve knew that this was part of the act but rolled his eyes anyway, playing along. “Sure, Buck.”

Bucky added that color to his eyes and then moved on to another. “For a little extra dimension and drama and flair, let’s go in with this dark purple shade _Dungeon_ and try not to think about the possible connotations that name has with our mental trauma and/or sex life.”

“Jesus, Bucky,” Steve said, taken aback by his conversational casualness, and Bucky laughed while he placed the color precisely on the outer corner of Steve’s eyes, blending it outward. “We can’t just stick to the cute stories?”

“Oh, you wanted cute stories?” Bucky said, tapping the brush against the side of the palette. “Well, this one metallic pink shade here is super gorgeous and reminds me of this one time when we were in a parking garage in Germany.”

Knowing the ending of this particular story a bit too well, Steve tensed. The nonchalant tone to Bucky’s voice, however, kept him calm, and Steve allowed him to continue without interruption.

“Oh, it was a lovely spring day – not a cloud in the sky, birds chirping, all that jazz – and I was meeting all these new people who were trying to help me out in this whirlwind of turmoil that I was thrown into. I was being framed for this horrible crime that I would never commit and still struggling with the trauma of everything that I was already going through – which we don’t really need to go into depth about again. But, then, all of a sudden, in the middle of all this drama and excitement, as if I’m not going through enough, I see the love of my life shoving his tongue down the throat of this beautiful blonde woman. Right in front of my face. Right in front of all these new friends. Oh, and by the way, this is the niece of the _other_ woman that he was seeing.”

Steve swallowed, feeling his face grow hot and knowing that if there wasn’t already a pink powder on his cheeks, his own blush would be adding to it.

With a one-shoulder shrug, Bucky simply smiled to the camera and began tapping a new color onto Steve’s eyelid with a new, flattened brush. “Anyway, this shade is called _Betrayal_.”

Holding Bucky’s wrist in place for a moment, Steve interrupted him. “You’re stabbing my eye, Buck.”

“ _Hm_ ,” Bucky mused before resuming his application of the eyeshadow without any adjustment in the pressure that he used. “I wish someone stabbed me in the eye so that I didn’t have to witness that, but you chose to stab me in the heart instead.”

With a certain audacity and bravado that he had never seen before, Bucky actually winked at the camera, and Steve held his breath, wondering in awe, _Who the hell is this bastard?_

But before he could object further to this entire endeavor that he was already 75-percent complete, before his anxious thoughts could spiral into the dark pits of regret from years of rejecting his love for the man beside him who had suffered just as much – if not more – and before any other fears could surface in regard to how many other of these ‘cute stories’ that were told to his million followers, painting Steve in an atrocious but certainly deserving light, Bucky closed the palette and set down his brush, ending the onslaught on Steve’s eyelids, and wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. Hugging him from behind, Bucky pressed his lips to a spot right below his ear, whispering in a soft voice that Steve was finally familiar with, “I love you so much. You really have no idea how much I love you and how much this means to me that you’re willing to do this. I hope you don’t mind me teasing, and I can always cut it from the video if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Steve leaned back into his embrace, feeling nothing but comfortable in this position even with a layer of chemicals and compounds on his face. “It’s okay, Buck. I don’t mind.”

“Good,” Bucky said, reiterating with one last kiss to his neck. “I think my followers will like it when I poke fun at you, and I guess I like it too. It’s nice to not take everything so seriously and laugh about all the awful things we’ve been through. I’m not actually mad at you, you know.”

“I do.”

“You better.” Bucky turned to rustle through the cosmetic paraphernalia laid out on the cart before finding the next tool that he needed. He cleared his throat before returning his attention to the camera and shaking the black stick toward the lens, putting on that extra articulate edge to his voice to address the future audience again. “Alright, now that we got those eyes dazzling, I think it’s time for eyeliner. Would you like the Winter Soldier treatment?”

Shuddering internally, Steve recalled that awful black substance smeared around the vacant eyes that peered back at him on the rooftop where a stranger had caught his shield with ease in 2014 – a memory that he replayed in his mind over and over and over at night, in bed alone, when he couldn’t sleep, until the edges of the image frayed. Steve shook his head. “Not this time.”

“This time, huh? Does that mean there’s gonna be another time that we do this?” Bucky gave a hopeful glance to the camera with his eyebrows raised.

“Depends on how many of you at home like this video,” Steve said while pointing at the camera, trying his own hand at an on-camera persona but hearing the words stumble awkwardly out of his mouth, lopsided in inflection and oddly reminiscent of the tone that he used when telling kids to stay in school or get good grades.

Hearing the shift in atmosphere, an abrupt halt to the playfulness, Bucky paused, blinking as he attempted to process the situation. “Okay, so we’ll have to work on the delivery, but good try, hon.”

With the same steady hand that Steve knew allowed him to excel at sniping, Bucky drew a perfectly straight line on each of Steve’s eyes, just above his eyelashes, neither of them taking a single breath while he did it. Exhaling with a relieved laugh, Bucky picked up another item from the cart. “Time for some mascara and lashes.”

For Steve, this was easily the most frightening part of the experience. As he kept his eyes peeled open, Steve was forced to watch a stick with far too many pointy bristles on it come far too close to his eyes. If that wasn’t enough, Bucky then glued what felt like feathered wings to his eyelashes, and Steve found it harder to blink when they were dry, as if his eyelids were weighed down.

“How’s that feel?” Bucky asked, sounding a bit concerned.

“Odd,” Steve replied honestly.

Bucky nodded and tossed aside that initial concern. “Sounds about right. I don’t know if you can see, but you guys at home can definitely see that there’s little diamond rhinestones on these bad boys, and they look ridiculously good on you.”

Steve blinked at the mirror and saw the small flecks shimmer in the lights. “Huh,” was all that he could think of as a response.

Again, releasing his easy-going laugh, Bucky picked up another small jar-like product from the cart, unscrewed it, and dug a finger into it. “So your lips will be perfectly soft and smooth for a liquid lip, let’s use Jeffree’s Velour Lip Scrub in the classic _Strawberry Gum_ flavor.” He rubbed the rough-textured sugar against Steve’s lips, and leaving the substance there, he looked to the camera. “The best part about this?”

Taking Steve by surprise, Bucky dived down to capture his lips in a kiss that allowed him to lick off the scrub as he sucked Steve’s bottom lip into his mouth, while Steve felt his heart race in his chest, pounding in his ears.

When he pulled away, Bucky grinned and answered his own question. “You just lick it off – or, you know, have your pretty boyfriend lick it off.”

Steve tried a bit of the sugar for himself, hardly even tasting the sweet, fruity flavor, as he willed his heartbeat to slow down, watching Bucky remove what he presumed to be a _liquid lip_ from its box. “I can’t wait to show you guys these new glosses, so to give it a nice, matte base, I’m going to use the Velour Liquid Lipstick shade _Scorpio_ from the new Mini Bundle. Can you pout for me, baby?”

Bucky snickered at the way Steve puckered his lips but applied the product anyway. Following Bucky’s example, Steve rubbed his lips together to evenly spread the gray-purple lipstick. “Good?” Steve asked, leaning toward the mirror, unsure if the color was coating his mouth properly.

“Great, actually. Not gonna lie, I’m a little mad at how good this shade looks on you. I’ll have to start making you wear lipstick more often.”

Steve smiled as he shook his head, and Bucky twirled the lip _gloss_ in front of the camera. “This stunning, shimmery silver-lilac lip gloss, called _Iridescent Throne_ , will be the perfect lip topper to tie this whole look together. I mean, just look at the way the glitter catches the light.”

Bucky brushed it on Steve’s lips, and it glided on smoothly, leaving his lips to sparkle in the lights.

Before Steve could respond, Bucky picked up a faux-leather, purple box that fit between the palms of both of his hands. He gleefully presented it to the camera first. “You all know that I love to save the highlighter for last, and god, look how sickening this packaging is! I mean, hello, this feels so _heavy_ in my hands, and you can just tell that it is a high-quality product without even seeing it. Like, I want this to be the box that my engagement ring comes in when you propose to me, Stevie. Take note.”

Steve couldn’t help but shyly stare at the camera. Marriage had been a topic that they discussed on numerous occasions and certainly something that they were both in favor of taking advantage of now that it was legal, but finding the right time to properly propose turned out to be more difficult than Steve anticipated. He heard the message loud and clear – the same ones that Bucky’s followers would hear – to find that right time sooner. “Yes, dear, High King Bucky.”

As he removed the hefty-looking compact from the nice box, Bucky smirked. “Oh, I like that. Keep that in mind for tomorrow.” After winking again, he showed the product to the camera. “Look at how unreal this sparkle is. I think I want to eat this, instead of wearing it. Is that weird?” Steve held his tongue, letting Bucky continue, as he swiped his index finger across the surface of the glitter powder and gasped at the result. “With just a quick one-two swipe, you guys, my entire finger is _coated_ , and you know this is going to give us that full-coverage, blinding highlight that only Jeffree and Jeffree alone can promise us with his Extreme Frost highlighters. Also, hello, shade _Choking on Ice_ could not be more perfect for us, considering how much of our lives we’ve spent being frozen."

Ignoring his joke, Steve watched in a similar but subtler amount of awe as Bucky lightly tapped his finger along his cheekbone, lifting away to reveal a lavender glow on his cheek, as if his skin was wet with a light purple sheen. He had to admit that it was an impressive magic trick.

Bucky mirrored the application on his other cheek and sighed. “I think I’m in love. I mean, obviously, I’ve always been in love with you, but I’m also head-over-heels for this highlighter. Can I just rub this on your entire body? Please, please, _please_ , let me swatch this on your abs.”

Ducking his head, Steve shook his head with a light chuckle. “Bucky, the U.S. government didn’t give me this body so you could cover my abs in makeup.”

“Okay, but the U.S. government didn’t give you this body so I could cover your abs in my cum either, but how many times have we been in that position?”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve said, exasperated, and looked to see the red light of the camera that was still glowing.

Bucky shrugged, raising his eyebrows, as if challenging him to answer the question.

When Steve sighed, Bucky’s lackadaisical grin returned as he gently tapped the glitter beneath his eyebrows, in the inner corners of his eyes, and on the tip of his nose. “Ta-da!” Bucky said, gesturing to Steve with his palms open, like he was presenting him to a crowd on stage. “I think we can officially call this masterpiece complete.”

With all of the pieces set into place, Steve could fully appreciate the work in its entirety from an artistic standpoint. Bucky’s lines were clean, and his use of color was unique with layers of pink and purple blended beautifully around his eyes. His face clearly told a story, even if it was just representative of those fairytale, unicorn, magic, princess dreams. It was definitely not a look that Bucky would wear regularly: neither a barely-there, natural emphasis that he would wear when running errands. Nor was it the elegant, exaggerated-but-sophisticated look to accompany a tailored black suit worn to one of the rare events that they would attend. Nor was it the dark and sultry, smoky eye makeup that he would pair with a red lipstick, which Steve refused to admit was a weakness, when they retired for the evening, going to bed with a purpose. This particular look had humor in it. Light-hearted jokes mixed with good-natured jabs at each other’s insecurities. It had a familiarity to it that only the two of them shared. It had love in it.

“Great job, Buck,” Steve said and genuinely meant the words, not worrying about how the camera would detect them.

“Yeah? You like it?” Bucky asked, eyes wide, as if uncertain whether he was being honest.

Steve nodded. “Of course, I do. I like everything that you do, and I am so proud of you for finding something that you love so much and are so talented at.”

At first, Bucky said nothing, standing there, blinking a bit faster than normal, but then, he moved, stepping closer and throwing his arms around Steve’s neck. The added edge to his voice vanished, as he said, “Thank you, Steve. That means so much to me. You know, I love you too, right?”

Instinctively, Steve pressed into his embrace, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist. “Always. I love you too.”

When they untangled themselves from the hug, Bucky pressed a quick peck to Steve’s lips, as if not wanting to ruin his work, and Steve chased him by pressing another to his cheek. Bucky laughed at the glittery imprint that remained and kept an arm slung around Steve’s neck as he stood by his side. “Well, there you have it, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the video, and if you did, make sure to like it, leave a comment, and share this sappy bullshit with all your friends. If enough of you insist, maybe we’ll do something else together. Maybe we can sit down and talk about our entire relationship from the very beginning until now, or maybe Steve can try to do _my_ makeup. I don’t know, we can even talk about what we end up doing for Valentine’s tomorrow, but I have a feeling that a whole lot of it is going to revolve around that word _Dungeon_.”

“ _Bucky_!” Steve repeated, more insistently, making him grin wider.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day to you, too, lovely reader! Whether you're spending it with a special someone, with friends and family, or by yourself, I hope this little story brought a bit of joy to your day. As always, I would love to encourage you to leave a kudos or a comment, letting me know what you think! If you liked it, feel free to send it to your own Valentine, haha. 
> 
> (P.S. If you are also like me and adore hearing the concept of Steve/Bucky with royal themes, allow me to shamelessly plug my other fic "heavy is the head" in which Artist!Steve reconnects with Future Prince!Bucky in a Modern-Royalty/No-Powers AU that is also a lot of fun.)


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